Critical Thinking Rubric

Unless you have a guideline or a reminder of the aspects that your critical thinking paper will address, chances that you might miss on some important aspects are very high. Therefore having a critical thinking checklist or rubric becomes inevitable. Below is a reflection of what a critical thinking checklist should look like:

Logical argumentation– does your argument (s) follow a systematic reasoning process through which a conclusion can be derived?

Evaluation– have you identified assumptions and assessed the quality and readability of evidence sources presented. How credible are the criteria for evaluating the validity of inferences made?

Analysis– does the critical thinking paper demonstrate how you have broken down facts and concepts in order to have a better understanding of the features underlying the concept and facts?

Synthesis– how well has the critical thinking paper combined information from different sources in order to come up with well-supported logical conclusions to specific questions.

When reading to write a critical thinking paper, the checklist below is helpful:

• What different perspectives of the same question have different authors demonstrated?
• Is there another approach to the same question?
• Is there concrete evidence to support points raised by different authors?
• Has the author presented opinions or facts?
• How valid is the author’s reasoning?
• Are the generalizations made by the author supported by evidence?
• Has the author rationally presented the question rationally?
• How would you classify the tone used by the writer?
• Are your thought processes biased?
• How accurate has the author presented his/her ideas?
• What is the reaction of the author to other authors’ ideas?
• Has the author made complex ideas look so simple?
• Can you identify red flags in the write-up as far as persuasion is concerned?
• Has the author used the most suitable language in putting across ideas?
• Can you identify information gaps?